Fastest way to set all values of an array?

Question

I have a char [], and I want to set the value of every index to the same char value.
There is the obvious way to do it (iteration):

<         


        

Answer 1

You could use arraycopy but it depends on whether you can predefine the source array, - do you need a different character fill each time, or are you filling arrays repeatedly with the same char?

Clearly the length of the fill matters - either you need a source that is bigger than all possible destinations, or you need a loop to repeatedly arraycopy a chunk of data until the destination is full.

    char f = '+';
    char[] c = new char[50];
    for (int i = 0; i < c.length; i++)
    {
        c[i] = f;
    }

    char[] d = new char[50];
    System.arraycopy(c, 0, d, 0, d.length);